


Confidentially Speaking

by levitatethis



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-18
Updated: 2010-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 13:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niki helps Mohinder try to gain some perspective</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confidentially Speaking

Mohinder can feel her eyes on his back (that is what a drawn out silence that goes ten long seconds beyond comfortable does) as he stands at the kitchen sink and drinks a glass of water. He does not mean to be rude but the moment he turns around the conversation he has been re-editing in his head will come to some sort of fruition and the reality of what is happening will no longer be avoidable. Residing in the delusion of everything being okay is fleeting at best, yet he holds on.

He wishes she would say something first and take their impending conversation in an entirely different direction, one that would be perfectly suited for a wishful distraction. The fact that he was the one who invited her over to talk, however, pushes him to finish swallowing the water with an embarrassingly loud gulp (so much for being casually understated). He puts the glass on the counter, focusing on the friction-induced sound of glass on laminate, and turns around with a forced grin in place.

Niki returns the self-conscious smile. Sitting a few feet from him at the kitchen table she rests her head on her propped up left arm and shifts her own glass of water along the tabletop with her right hand; a few centimeters to the right then a few centimeters to the left. It is apparent that she is biding time until he makes the next move. Sometimes he wishes she were truly as unaware as she professes to be.

Mohinder clears his throat. “So it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience then for Molly to visit with Micah for a few weeks until—,”

He shifts his gaze as the words he is not ready to give up wrestle to break free at the tip of his tongue but then he collects himself quickly and says, “Until things settle down.”

“Of course,” Niki nods and sits up stretching both her arms across the table before settling back in the chair. “She can always visit—whenever. Micah doesn’t really have any friends. Molly’s the only kid who doesn’t look at him like a freak.”

“I’m sure she feels like one most of the time no matter how hard I, and Matt, try to make her feel normal,” says Mohinder with a sigh and he rubs his right hand along his left cheek. “It’s an unfortunate bond they have in common.”

Niki pushes her hair away from her face and behind her ears, her smile faltering. “At least they know they’re not alone.”

He feels like flippantly asking if it is really a good thing to feel like one of a handful of human anomalies with no rhyme or reason as to why, alienated and in fear of being found out and locked up. The sarcastic remark dies quickly at the back of his throat at the sight of Niki’s distant stare directed at the table. He has to remind himself that without the genetic marker in himself, without the manifestation that others have experienced and had to learn to control, he is still an outsider looking in. He is not fully versed in their circumstances.

It is as easy to come across as friendly as it is to be regarded as disrespectful. A lesson in self-awareness towards whom he is speaking with clips the retort that comes naturally to him.

“Yes, of course,” Mohinder says grimacing at the near slip up of unintentionally callous words. “I didn’t mean to imply…I…sorry. I sometimes forget how it all appears through their eyes as children…not that I forget they’re kids—,”

“It’s okay.”

Her heartfelt reply is the key to ending his awkward stumbling. The relative innocence of Niki’s countenance (a sharp contrast to the smooth manipulations and brute physicality of Jessica) tends to reduce Mohinder to bumbling uncertainty. Where others seem coolly accepting of their abilities or overwhelmed with panic, Niki is aware to the point of resignation that this is who she is, like it or not. It is a position that knocks Mohinder off balance because it forces his approach to be direct but cautious. In short, dealing with her is like stepping through a very precarious minefield.

The other factor in his response to her is that she is one of the few people he has met in America with whom he feels an authentic friendship forming. Whether it is the shared experience of being in a position to protect others or the more simple truth that conversations with her bear a genuine honesty in the sharing of wants and hopes, and despairing concern, each visit between them fosters a tighter bond of affectionate amicability.

“How’s Molly doing?” Niki asks laying her hands flat on the table.

“As good as can be expected,” Mohinder says shaking his head. “She has night terrors even though I’ve tried to make her feel as safe as I can. It’s difficult trying to establish a routine of bland normalcy when she’s experienced nothing of the sort. But we _were_ getting there.”

There is a lull as his words transform from a simply uttered comment into a declarative mission cry.

“He came back?” Niki says. Her surprised whisper accentuates her widening eyes and Mohinder pulls out the chair across from her and sits down. He finds it difficult to meet her gaze, now that she has guessed his reason for wanting to send Molly into her care for the time being, and chooses to stare somewhat cowardly at his drink.

“He came back,” she says with more force behind her words than he expects (and he instinctively hopes that Jessica is not about to make an unscheduled appearance) and the traces of anger and worry in her voice suggest her controlled but fractured and patchwork psyche.

Mohinder meets her eyes and says, “His grasp exceeds his reach. Out from the shadows—_what rough beast, it’s hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” _

Recognizing the confusion on Niki’s face (his habit of quoting, and generally speaking from some overeducated standpoint has been something he dreads is off-putting to the many people he has crossed paths with outside of the academia world in which he had lived in for so long) Mohinder purses his lips as some act of self-reprimand to shut up so as not to sound like he is talking down to her. In a clarifying tone he says, “Yes he’s back—and more powerful than ever.”

He watches Niki’s mouth collapse, the outward extension of her worry, in line with the narrowing of once bright blue eyes that are now a stormy and dark. “Are you okay?” she asks after a thoughtful pause.

Mohinder is unsure how best to answer the question. Physically he is fine, besides a couple of bruised patches of skin from being shoved around (a favoured set of fixed steps that he and Sylar seem to gravitate towards), but emotionally he feels like a scattered mess (the result of mind games and conversations for which he must always be at the ready for).

As much as he is on edge when dealing with Sylar, the instinctual panic that used to precede all of his other feelings when Sylar chose to present himself has fallen down his list of reactions. Worry is still paramount but it is tangled up with adamant curiosity that only grows with time. Each whispered story behind his back, not meant for his ears, as well as the ones said straight to his face feed his need to know.

There is an indescribable absurdity in being cognizant of how others, including those he hardly knows, see him in relation to Sylar. His name is spoken alongside Sylar’s with a noun and verb purpose within the same sentence, with the same intake of breath, structured together in an interrelated dependency that bespeaks a larger reality. He cannot help but wonder about the depth of the scrutiny he is under. Although surviving Sylar a handful of times is admirable and affords Mohinder a respected reputation it also calls forth judgmental skepticism.

Mohinder can hazard a guess as to why he is still standing. He has never forgotten the incredibly personal conversations from their road trip, that bastard child of desperate hope and manipulative endeavors. Before the walls came tumbling down they had clicked—so fast—_too_ fast. But Mohinder could not deny all of it. He cannot wish it all away as cunning con work. Even in the tricky interrogation that this very living room had played witness to there was truth in the verbal assaults and counter attacks. That was the only the beginning of every interaction that followed, of every phrase, tone, assertion, and touch that has come to exemplify them.

In their defensive offensive (or is it the other way around, he never can make heads or tails of it) they are intricately bound for life.

Trying to put such a convoluted riddle into words is no easy trick, and Niki’s next question is the only thing that saves him from having to contemplate it on the spot. At the same time he is reminded that his feeling invisible in the grand scheme of things (despite knowing how entrenched in it all he is) does not quite mesh with the reality that he is a very much a watched figure.

“Do you think he’ll hurt her?” says Niki. “I mean he didn’t the last time, right?”

“No, but then there’s Maya, Matt, Peter…” Mohinder says and he raises his eyebrow to accentuate the forced humour.

Niki ignores his attempt to derail her line of questioning. “But not you or Molly,” she says and leans forward to rest her upper body on her arms now folded across the table. “He’s tried to kill before, but not while she’s been with you.”

“Do you think I’m being rash sending her away?” Mohinder says with surprised wonder.

“No,” Niki rushes to say. “I think I’d do the same—,”

“Then consider it a precautionary measure.”

Niki lets out a small sigh but does not look away from him. He wonders if she knows just how disconcerting her attentive questioning can be. She has survived an immense torrent of destructive odds, many of which she cannot recall firsthand as they were dealt with by her alter ego and dead twin sister, Jessica, in an act of ultimate protection. The way she contemplates him makes him feel much more vulnerable than he particularly cares for, especially when he is trying to stay focused and safely distant.

Mohinder catches glimpses of Jessica’s fiery and take charge personality in Niki’s much warmer eyes—or maybe he is simply seeing things, a notable side effect of dealing with a slew of complicated types within whom there is a (subtle at times) notable distinction between their ‘normal’ selves and their powered personalities.

He feels Niki’s silence prodding him to hear what she is otherwise unsure about saying out loud. He can choose to ignore it and move their conversation in another, more innocent, direction but it this is a topic that has been playing at the back of his mind for a couple of weeks now and Niki may prove to be as good as any with whom to shed some light.

“Do you think Molly would be safer with me?” Mohinder says and Niki’s eyes growing larger (before narrowing) in connection with her half opened mouth (quickly pressed into a tight line) are her honest reply before she offers him the more acceptable censored response.

“No,” she says with such a lack of conviction he can hear the question mark drifting lazily at the end.

Mohinder gives her a small smile. “How about we pretend to be completely honest with each other for a few minutes?”

She bites her bottom lip and shifts her gaze down to her hands as she clasps them together. “I’ll do everything to protect Micah and Molly,” she brings her eyes back to his. “But super strength isn’t enough. Not if he wants it. And then Micah and Molly…I don’t think he would care that they’re kids.”

“You can put up a better fight than I can,” Mohinder says trying to hide his concern beneath an insistent tone. “I can keep him at bay with harsh words, and his own bizarre liking for messing with my head, but it’s not exactly an impenetrable defense.”

“But he left you two alone before,” Niki says and he can see the pleading confusion in her lined brow and firmly held hands.

“Only to test the cure on himself,” Mohinder says doubting the words as soon as they roll off his tongue. “If Elle had not shown up he very well could have come back to finish us all off.”

“But he didn’t,” she says. “And when he did come back he left you both alive.”

“That doesn’t mean what you think it does,” he says snappishly in frustration at how close she is getting to his guarded uncertainties.

Niki shoots him a look that he is sure is meant to counter him in a friendly manner but feels more like a chastising slap on the hand as he is sent to sit in the corner. “I thought you wanted to tell the truth?” she says.

Mohinder quickly lets out a huff of resignation as he realizes that Niki is not going to let him off the hook. He scratches his right hand through his hair as she patiently watches him.

“I don’t know why—or for certain—why Sylar regards Molly differently since she’s been with me,” says Mohinder and seeing Niki open her mouth to question the vague statement prompts him to preempt her. “Honestly I…I don’t know what it is. It’s hard to explain.”

Niki sits tall, pushing her back against the chair, and with exaggerated disbelief says, “You—out of words? No way.”

She grins widely at him and he senses the heated flush that races across his cheeks. Barely perceptible to her (besides the way he bashfully twists his mouth) but it is like a fire is raging beneath his skin all the same.

“With Sylar,” Mohinder says gesturing his right hand in the air with a back and forth motion indicating his scattered mind, “There’s a complicated history that makes guessing his next move, particularly his intentions with me, a very complicated riddle. He could kill me but he hasn’t, for reasons I can only hypothesize. I’m not sure even he knows.”

“And Molly?”

“I get the impression he considers her off limits for the time being, though that could change. But considering the devastation she’s seen by his hand—her parents, Matt, Maya being shot, his attempts on her own life—I don’t want to further confuse her with…”

Mohinder’s words hang loosely in the air. He is unsure how to explain his deepening concern for Molly’s well being the more she sees how he and Sylar interact versus how she has already packaged his existence in her head.

“You act one way with Sylar because Molly’s watching,” Niki says tentatively as she shifts her eyes back and forth searching his for agreement that she is on the right track.

He nods his response.

“But it’s not the only way you deal with each other?”

“My anger and frustration with him is very real,” Mohinder is quick to say so as not to give the false impression that the past is of no consequence. “But there’s also…”

He groans and rubs his forehead. “It’s far too difficult to explain. With Molly I have to maintain a certain level of antagonism no matter what. If she were to see…How can I possibly explain to her that the monster who has brought havoc down upon her life—and has ripped apart pieces of my own—is the same man with whom I share a history that allows for the most intricate of shared understandings towards this still relatively unknown discovery for humankind. And that in the face of those who would hurt all of you, he—monster as he is—would trust—,”

Mohinder clears his throat and Niki narrows her eyes.

“He would _seek_ me out as some sort of confidante.”

He leans forward and grips the edge of the table tightly. “Molly is an innocent in all of this.”

“So are you,” Niki says crinkling her eyes as she questions his implication.

“No,” he sighs and brings his hands together, “I’m not. I had chances to try to stop him but didn’t and now…things are much more involved than they were and…”

“You want to see what happens?”

Mohinder does not reply, instead fidgeting his fingers around each other, tapping the tabletop; drawing invisible lines across the surface.

“You need to see where this goes.”

In his tunnel vision focus he abruptly halts his hand, his right index finger shaking on the spot. “I have to see where it goes,” he says in a quieted offering.

“Is it safe?” she says and reaches across the table to softly squeeze his arm.

“No,” he says. “Which is all the more reason for Molly to not be here. I can be—,”

“Stupid.”

Mohinder raises his right eyebrow and muffles a laugh. “Unrestrained in my dealings with him.”

He holds her gaze until she pulls back from the touch and stands up, scratching her chair across the floor. He watches her walk over the window and stare outside, her right hand braced against the wall while she rests her left one on her hip. Mohinder firmly plants his feet on the floor and pushes back on the chair. He turns it slightly in Niki’s direction and crosses his right leg over the left.

She looks over her shoulder, her eyes are turned down and a small frown pushes on the corners of her lips. “I could try and bring Jessica out?”

Mohinder looks down at his lap as a flood of panic quickly passes through him and he looks back at her with all the intensity he can convey. “It’s very kind of you to offer, and at such risk to yourself—but _absolutely not_. You’ve only just started to harness her ability into a controllable source. Sylar should not be your first test. I won’t allow you to put yourself in jeopardy for my own problems.”

The dejected look that befalls her face as she looks to the floor and then back out the window eats at him for the loss she feels in herself. He understands it all too well. For so long he has struggled to keep his head above the water line, trying to keep a steady focus forward and attempting to see the big picture more clearly. It is an upending experience of metaphorical body slams that have pounded and scarred him. Feeling impotent in accomplished action is never much of a motivation.

“But thank you,” he says trying to sound out the honest gratitude he feels for her willingness to help him at such a great cost to herself.

Niki tenses her shoulders then drops them. Turning around slowly she says, “You have to promise to be careful.”

Mohinder consciously words his answer, “As much as I can be.”

“Not good enough,” she says, the reply quick and unflinching. Walking back towards him and folding her arms across her chest she says, “Molly expects you to still be here after everything.”

Seeing the concern etched in the lines of her rigidly clenched jaw and the purposeful steps with which she approaches, he stands up to alleviate her worry. Niki reaches out her right hand and grasps his shoulder, stopping him. “Kids remember everything. What you say. What you try to hide. What they don’t understand. Micah only needs one thing from me: to know I’m there for him.”

Mohinder reaches his right hand up and clasps the hand Niki has on his left shoulder. “I know.”

“It’s easy to say. It’s harder to mean.”

In what is not said Mohinder hears the omen she is delivering. Lessons of her past act as a cheat sheet learning curve meant to ease his movement into the unknown.

“I—,” he says and catches her raised eyebrow. “I’ll do my best.”

He is sure the words sound empty but it is the only truth he can muster to speak as she regards him expectantly, unintentionally demanding an answer that ensures he has heard and taken to heart her warning cry. All he can hope is that she sees his intentions for what they are.

She twists up a half smile and, dropping her hand encourages his to follow as she turns hers around and catches his in a handshake. “She’ll know that,” Niki says with a nod.

Mohinder looks down at their hands and feels the sudden regret that this may be the closest heart-to-heart for him in awhile. He wants to believe he is making the right decision but everything has been one risk after the other for him. For just a moment he wants to cling greedily to Niki’s optimism.

“I can only hope so,” he says.


End file.
